Treating Your Skin with Care.

Caring for our skin is always hard at work.  Along with it being the largest organ, it also protects us in all our activities.  It is always undergoing change as we go about our day. The part of the skin we see every day is called the epidermis.  It is the thinnest of the three layers of skin.  There are five layers to the epidermis.  As the five layers develop, each one pushes up causing the top layer to flake off.  This process takes about two weeks.  Every minute we lose about 30,000 to 40,000 skin cells, which add up to nine pounds a year!

The second layer of skin is called the dermis, which contains nerve endings, blood vessels, oil glands and sweat glands. The nerve endings tell the brain what we are touching.

The third and bottom layer of the skin is called the subcutaneous.  It is mostly made of fat, which helps the body regulate its temperature and absorbs the shock when you bump yourself.

With all that the skin does for you, it is important to treat it well.  Just as it is important to be mindful of what you put in your body, it is important what you put on your skin.  You need to feed your body from within.  Processed food, fast food and those high in fructose play a factor in the appearance of your skin, and not in a good way.  

Everything we eat appears on our skin at some point.  If you eat junk food, it is easy to predict what your skin will look like.  The stress the chemicals play on your skin will show through.  It is hard to remove processed food from our diet, but in the end it will be easier than dealing with the aftermath of eating it.

Whether you think you have good skin or not, it is important to nourish it because of all the changes it goes through.   Avoid processed food and drink plenty of water.  Drinking a glass of water in the morning with a freshly squeezed lemon helps remove toxins from the blood and stimulates your digestive system.  Lemons are loaded with vitamin C, proteins, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium and fiber.  All of these will give your skin a healthy glow.

Make sure you nourish and hydrate your skin from the outside as well.  Moisturizing daily is so important.  Find something that works for you; just make sure you read your labels.  Know what you are putting on your skin.  

Here are a few ingredients to stay away from …

• Isopropyl Palmitate, Benzophenone-3, Isopropyl Myrstate, which can clog pores.
• Triethanolamine, which is derived from ammonia.
• Phenoxyethanol, which is a coal-tar ingredient. 
• Any preservative that contains parabens.

Find a moisturizer that has ingredients you recognize:  shea butter, aloe, jojoba oil, hemp oil, coconut oil and a paraben-free preservative like optiphen.

  

Moisturizers come in different forms.  They are not just lotions or creams.  Sugar and salt scrubs are excellent moisturizers and wonderful exfolients.  Scrubs normally do not contain a preservative.  Another alternative is a lotion bar, which, like a scrub, does not contain a preservative.